Avaya is a leading provider of solutions that enable customer and team engagement across multiple channels and devices for better customer experience, increased productivity and enhanced financial performance. Its world-class contact center and unified communications technologies and services are available in a wide variety of flexible on-premise and cloud deployment options that seamlessly integrate with non-Avaya applications. The Avaya Engagement Environment enables third parties to create and customize business applications for competitive advantage. Avaya’s fabric-based networking solutions help simplify and accelerate the deployment of business critical applications and services. For more information, please visit www.avaya.com.

Current Authors

Jon Alperin leads the Avaya DevConnect program--Avaya's global developer and technology partner program--leveraging a background as an application developer, solution architect, and product manager for the telecom and high-tech industries. Since joining Avaya in 2001, he has also supported the company with roles in corporate strategy, marketing and alliance development.

Based in Dubai – U.A.E., and a member of the Avaya International (EMEA/APAC) leadership team, Alzubaidi is a leader in Customer and Team Engagement Solutions for Avaya. He brings 25+ years’ experience in business communications to helping enterprises enhance and expand their customer experiences with advanced technologies.

Sami Ammous is the System Engineering Director for Avaya Asia Pacific, running the technical sales team with focus on delivering outcomes to Avaya’s top customers. Sami is also one of Avaya’s thought leaders, delivering talks in public forums and contributing to online publications. He has deep expertise in customer and team engagement solutions.

Laura Bassett is the Director of Marketing for Avaya’s Customer and Team Engagement Solutions. Laura oversees all aspects of marketing including business planning and strategy, market research and awareness, product marketing, and engagement for current and next generation Unified Communications and Contact Center solutions. Laura has over 20 years’ experience in applications consulting, development and delivery. She has a BSBA in Computer Science and an Executive MBA from the University of Florida.

Oliver Bengtsson is Senior Product Manager of IP Endpoints at Avaya, leading new device innovation. Oliver is responsible for the introduction and go-to-market initiatives of exciting new solutions such as Avaya Vantage.

As IT Architecture & Systems Senior Director at Avaya, Michael focuses on cloud and transformational enterprise solutions, producing business-driven IT and converged IT architecture. Among many awards, Michael received National recognition as Innovator of the Year (2009) by Red Hat and by NetApp (2012) and was issued a patent related to networking technology in March 2016.

Markus Bornheim is a consultant sales engineer for Emergency Services & Public Safety at Avaya. Markus’s 30-year career builds on business analysis combined with architectural views and technologies for Contact Centers and Enterprise UC environments. Markus is an active member of EENA and NENA, and consultant to the Advisory Board of the German-European Commission for Civil Protection e.V.

Vandana Brar is Senior Product Manager at Avaya, leading new video desktop device innovation as part of the Endpoints portfolio. Vandana is responsible for the introduction and go-to-market initiatives of the Avaya Vantage Franchise. With an engineering background, Vandana has over 20 years’ experience in telecommunications hardware, software, and cloud product management.

Bob Braudes is a Solutions and Security Architect and a Systems Engineer at Avaya. Bob has over 30 years of experience developing, designing, and architecting systems across a wide variety of domains including collaboration, communications, medical, image processing, financial, intelligence, visual database programming, and military systems. Bob has been awarded over a dozen patents, and holds a Doctor Of Science in Computer Science.

Sara Broadbent, Senior Director of Avaya Corporate Responsibility, has 25+ years of experience in improving business ops by integrating environment, safety and sustainability goals and requirements into day-to-day work processes.

Rob is an Avaya Consulting Sales Engineer specializing in Avaya Equinox, Conferencing and Collaboration. He has 20 years of experience in the ICT industry, including at Radvision working with global organizations in many verticals.

David Chavez is a Vice President in the Office of the CTO, responsible for Architecture and Consulting. Having 25 years of experience and holding 76 US patents, David is responsible for Avaya’s award-winning and market-leading IP communications architecture and the creator of the Avaya Aura(R) architecture. He has a B.S. in Computer Science and Mathematics from New Mexico State University and an M.S. in Mathematics from Colorado State University, with some executive education from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Peter Chidiac is Managing Director at Avaya Australia and New Zealand. Peter was Managing Director at Truphone, where he managed a transformation of the Australian business. He has also held senior leadership roles at Veridian Solutions and eLoyalty, and was Managing Director A/NZ at Nuance Communications.

Jim Chirico is President and Chief Executive Officer of Avaya, Inc. He assumed his new role on October 1, 2017, after previously serving as Chief Operating Officer and Global Sales Leader. Since joining Avaya in 2008, he has been instrumental in the development of the company’s industry-leading business model, including record EBITDA performance, best-in-class Net Promoter Score, and increasing gross margin.

To extend the viewpoints and information we present in Avaya Connected, we occasionally invite Avaya customers, business partners, industry experts, and users to share their observations, reviews, and results of the Avaya solutions and technology that they work with every day.

Miles leads Avaya's Midmarket practice across Canada, Central and Latin America, focusing on transitioning companies to Avaya solutions available on premises and in easy-to-use, competitive cloud subscription models. Miles's background includes distribution, VAR, and regional sales leadership in Canada, Australia, and South America.

Greg Deffenbaugh focuses on Wi-Fi Location Based Services and Software Defined Storage Networking. Greg has spent the last 32+ years working in real-time systems, software development, and technical sales, including 18 years in enterprise storage, including both SAN and NAS technologies.

Jerry Dotson is the Vice President for civilian and advanced programs within Avaya Governments Solutions. Dotson oversees the design and implementation of communication services to support the various operations of Avaya government customers.

Joel holds the title of Distinguished Engineer as the lead architect on Avaya Breeze R&D. He is 20-year Avaya veteran, and is a named inventor on 30+ U.S. patents. At Avaya, Joel leads the Avaya Cloud Technology Council, WebRTC Steering Committee, and Single Sign-on. He has spoken at industry events including Enterprise Connect and the WebRTC expo. And he is a regular responder on various Avaya DevConnect forums.

In his position as Global Director - CTO Office for Enterprise Business Solutions, Fab helps define and drive customer business critical solutions, leveraging Avaya’s Software Defined Architectures including SDN to develop Smart Enterprise Solutions. Over the last 30 years, Fab has held various senior-level positions at companies such as Dell, Sidus, Antares & Bell Canada.

Mark J. Fletcher, ENP, is Avaya's Chief Architect for Worldwide Public Safety Solutions. With a telecommunications career spanning three decades, Fletch defines the strategic roadmap for Avaya's Next-Generation Emergency Services solutions while providing thought leadership to the industry. He represents Avaya on the NENA Institute Board, and was recently appointed to the FCC Task Force on Optimal PSAP Architecture and the FCC Disabilities Advisory Committee, where new ideas and innovations for urgent response and community engagement are brought together to deliver a smarter and safer environment.

Steve Forcum, an Avaya sales engineer, can explain complex technology in simple terms. Forcum is a trusted advisor to many of the largest businesses in New England and beyond. He has developed a platform of engagement, interacting with customers, partners, and other followers on all forms of social media.

Jim Geary is General Manager for Avaya’s Americas Sales and Services. In this role, Jim oversees sales, services, and consulting resources, supporting Avaya’s customers and partners throughout the United States, Latin America and Canada. He also has responsibility for the partner channel overseeing this key strategic area of the company’s go to market strategy.

Bernard Gutnick is the Senior Director of the Engagement Evangelist organization at Avaya. His team's charter is to drive adoption of the company's suite of engagement solutions. Prior to joining Avaya, Bernard held senior leadership positions at ShoreTel, TerreStar Networks, Sylantro Systems and Covad Communications.

Fadi Hani is the Vice President for the Middle East, Africa and Turkey. Since joining Avaya in 2007, Hani has held senior sales and management roles in the company, including Managing Director for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Pakistan, where he achieved double-digit business growth year-on-year, and was recognized as Avaya EMEA “Managing Director of the Year” in 2015.

Mark Hankel is a network architect at Avaya where he is responsible for driving certifications such as Common Criteria and JITC, which have enabled Avaya’s full product portfolio to be offered on the DoD approved product list. A 20+ year Networking industry veteran, Mark started his career at Cabletron, then moved to Baynetworks, which later became Nortel, then Avaya.

A 25-year veteran of the communications industry, Scott has held positions in finance, pricing, competitive analysis, joint venture management and product marketing across the midmarket and enterprise. He is currently responsible for marketing Avaya’s enterprise core Team Engagement solutions.

Karen Hardy, Vice President of Product & Solution Marketing at Avaya, is a 20+ year business communications industry veteran who currently leads marketing for Avaya’s market-leading customer engagement and team engagement technologies.

Alan Hase is the Vice President of Avaya’s Unified Access Research, Development and Product Management organization. Alan is responsible for the strategy and execution of Avaya’s Mobility, Identity and Access Switching products. Alan has been in the technology industry for over 20 years with 15 years of experience at Cisco.

With nearly 17 years of Healthcare IT product marketing experience, Ali has worked across the continuum of healthcare for companies such as IMS Health, Harvard Medical School, Parexel, and variety of early stage healthcare companies implementing m-Health clinical solutions. Ali received her bachelor’s degree from American University and master’s from Tufts University School of Medicine/Emerson College.

Lee Ho is Director of Digital Marketing for Avaya. Lee is responsible for a variety of strategic marketing disciplines, which include demand generation, messaging and positioning, solution launches, digital content and creative. Lee’s career spans 20 years of leadership experience in enterprise software marketing and startups. He also has extensive experience in product management, strategic alliances and change facilitation.

The International Avaya Users Group (IAUG) is the largest independent organization serving Avaya customers. IAUG members have access to industry leaders and Avaya experts, and attend networking and training events. In their guest postings for the Avaya Blog, leaders and members discuss what they’re doing, planning, and learning as they implement Avaya technology.

Peter has worked within Avaya in various regional and global support, consultancy, and management roles. He is currently shaping and driving the global technical strategy for Avaya global accounts around Avaya solutions, integrations, and customer service.

Galib Karim is currently VP of Sales for Avaya Americas International. As Avaya’s Sr Director of Sales for Caribbean and Latin America he led the region’s operations, including sales and support of the company's technology, applications, and industry-specific businesses. At Avaya, he’s been Managing Director for LATAM and Mexico, Director of Nortel Networks, Director of Service Providers, and Director of Enterprise Networks.

Avaya Corporate Distinguished Security Architect Ed Koehler as 20+ years’ experience in the communications and networking industries. Specialties include IPv6, multicast, digital identity and network security, voice and video Communications, and data science. Ed has several patents in these areas. Ed was named Distinguished Engineer in 2012 and is an IEEE member.

Mike is the Senior Director for Solutions Marketing at Avaya. He focuses on Marketing of Team Engagement solutions with emphasis on bringing new Cloud offers to Market. He is veteran in the technology industry, specializing in bringing pioneering technologies into new and established markets.

Jen Lau is an internal communications manager at Avaya, responsible for global communications to the company’s diverse employee base. Jen has a background in HR and came from the federal space, starting her career at Avaya Government Solutions. She has a B.A. in Communications from George Mason University. When not working virtually for Avaya, she spends her time answering to the name of (super) mom.

Cynthia Loosley captures and promotes Avaya customer, partner and sales success stories, as a member of the company's evangelist team. Cynthia has launched more than 15 major enterprise products worldwide, and served in dozens of executive marketing, product management and customer development roles, in both startup and established tech companies over 20 years.

Ioan MacRae is head of EU Midmarkets. In this role, MacRae is responsible for driving Avaya’s midmarket presence and increasing market share across the EU region. MacRae works closely with the EU sales team and Avaya partners to encourage the adoption of Avaya’s midmarket portfolio, improve sales cycles and go-to-market strategies. MacRae has a wealth of sales and management experience, both in the UK and overseas. Most recently, he was General Manager, UK, Ireland and Greece for Westcon Group.

After 20 years of building, designing & consulting on customer engagement solutions, I now have the pleasure of capturing, packaging and retelling our partners and customers success stories to anyone who is interested.

Tara has experience consulting with health systems globally, developing best practices and use cases leveraging communications technologies. She helps define and deliver solutions for patients, providers and payers including: mobile care team coordination and collaboration, digital channel patient access to services, virtual care solutions. She gets her energy from working closely with the Healthcare Administrators, Frontline Practitioners and IT Leadership defining requirements, delivering design and working closely with users through to implementation.

Val Matula is the Senior Director and Head of Emerging Products and Technology at Avaya. His team is responsible for delivering first-of-its-kind customer deployments of emerging technology solutions. He currently holds more than 40 patents.

With 20+ years of sales experience, Michelle McKenna, Senior Director of Business Development and Alliances at Avaya, knows how to drive growth through strategic partnerships and alliances. Michelle uses creativity, agility, and grit to build a culture of achievement and deliver outstanding outcomes.

Patti Moran is Senior Director, WW Channel Development and Activation. In this role, Patti oversees Avaya’s go-to-market strategy, identifying the gaps and formulating action plans to ensure optimal channel coverage and capability globally. She leads global partner recruitment and development, while building the programs and initiatives needed to activate the channel community, increase customer satisfaction and drive revenue through the Avaya channel.

Mohammad Nezarati founded Esna Technologies in 1989 to deliver innovative communications and collaboration solutions to enterprise customers. He served as both CEO and Chief Technologist for Esna, and was the primary architect and developer of the company’s first award-winning UC solution, Officelinx. Mohammad has more than 25 years of leadership experience and has been honored with the Canadian CTI Pioneer award for his experience in the messaging and communications industry. In 2015 Avaya acquired Esna and Mohammad served as the VP and GM of Team Engagement Applications. Presently he leads Zang, Inc. a wholly owned subsidiary of Avaya.

Laurent Philonenko is Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy & Development and CTO at Avaya, a leading provider of solutions that enable customer and team engagement. In this role, Laurent is responsible for the development and execution of Avaya’s short- and long-term growth and engagement strategies. As part of his focus on Avaya growth strategies, Laurent has oversight of M&A, Avaya Labs, architecture and consulting groups, as well as the Avaya DevConnect developer program and technology partnerships.

Andrew Prokop is the Director of Emerging Technologies at Arrow Systems Integration. Andrew is an active blogger and his widely-read blog, SIP Adventures, discusses every imaginable topic in the world of unified communications. Follow Andrew on Twitter at @ajprokop.

Paul Relf is a Digital Transformation Accelerator. As a Director of Product Management at Avaya, he helps customers enhance user experience, increase productivity and improve business performance by leveraging disruptive digital technology. Paul is a seasoned Agile Scrum and Pragmatic Marketing practitioner, with a strong track record of delivering innovative solutions to the market.

Bob Romano is the Vice President of Video Marketing at Avaya, where he is responsible for positioning, messaging and product marketing for video solutions. He previously served as the Vice President of Global Marketing at Radvision, which was acquired by Avaya in mid-2012.

Ronald is Vice President for Northern Europe His territory covers Germany, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Nordics, Ireland, Belgium and Luxembourg.
Ronald’s focus will be to continue driving strong change within Avaya, championing its customer first culture, motivating his team towards delivering the digital transformation goals of their customers, and building a solutions-selling approach that aligns teams from across Northern Europe.

As a Software Architect within Avaya’s Emerging Products and Technologies (EP&T) organization, Steve supports Avaya Sales Teams, Partners and Customers with innovative solution design solving often complex communication challenges. Steve has 20+ years of contact center software design and development experience architect and integrator and roles within professional services. As a self-professed “0.5 geek”, his passions include following the latest software trends and technologies of the increasingly fast paced technological world we all live in. Steve holds a Bachelor’s degree with honors in Information Technology from the University of Phoenix and has completed post graduate studies of Software Engineering at DePaul University in Chicago. In his free time, he enjoys playing sports including golf, paintball, hunting, fly fishing and snow skiing and spending time with his wife and 3 children.

Andrea "Andy" Steen specializes in leading internal and external strategic communication initiatives with an expertise in managing and developing high-performing communication teams and social, digital, mobile-led business solutions. She also leads Avaya’s Sports Marketing Team. Follow her at @andydances.

Emir Susic is 10-year industry veteran, predominantly focused on contact center and services. In the Avaya Services organization, he’s held various positions in the Adriatic, Eastern Europe, EMEA, GGM and recently AMEA. His experience managing Avaya sales organizations and our service provider customers’ contact centers combined with years of experience in Avaya Services allow him to form great teams focused on business outcomes.

Paul Unbehagen is Avaya Networking’s Chief Architect. He has over 15 years of experience in networking technology and an active member of IEEE and IETF. He owns 24 networking patents and is co-author of the IEEE 802.1aq specification for shortest-path bridging.

Currently a Strategic Accounts Sales Engineer on the Avaya UK Sales Enterprise Team, Paul has 17+ years’ experience in telecommunications. At Avaya, he’s held customer-focused roles in UC and Contact Centre technologies. He excels in helping customers through huge changes in technology, including consolidation of TDM systems and shifts to IP. He now focuses on helping companies deliver an exceptional customer experience as they define their DX.

Kellie Walenciak has been with Avaya since 2004. She presently leads the Employee Engagement team where she’s able to flex her creative muscles and nurture her love of the written word. When she’s not writing, editing or brainstorming, Kellie enjoys hiking, travelling, the ballet and the occasional political debate.

Michelle White is the Director of Product for Avaya’s Team Engagement Solutions. Michelle oversees Avaya’s Endpoints, Common Servers and Gateways and is responsible for running the business and defining, designing and launching new endpoint products. She has over 20 years’ experience in Consumer and Enterprise hardware, software and cloud product management.

Avaya is a leading provider of solutions that enable customer and team engagement across multiple channels and devices for better customer experience, increased productivity and enhanced financial performance. Its world-class contact center and unified communications technologies and services are available in a wide variety of flexible on-premise and cloud deployment options that seamlessly integrate with non-Avaya applications. The Avaya Engagement Environment enables third parties to create and customize business applications for competitive advantage. Avaya’s fabric-based networking solutions help simplify and accelerate the deployment of business critical applications and services. For more information, please visit www.avaya.com.